"PEOPLE KEEP SAYING IT'S A BAD TIME TO FIND A JOB,"
CELEBRITY IN CHIEF BARRY O TOLD THESE REPORTERS. "BULLS**T. FOUR YEARS
AGO, I WAS A FIRST TERM SENATOR WHO DIDN'T STAND A GOOD CHANCE AT BEING
A SECOND TERMER BUT NOW I AM PRESIDENT. THE JOB MARKET IS GREAT AND I
WON'T WORRY ABOUT IT AS LONG AS I HAVE MY JOB."

Still on peace, Joe Carter (Christianity Today) reviews Logan Mehl-Laituri's new book Reborn on the Fourth of July: The Challenge of Faith, Patriotism & Conscience
which explains how, in the military, he has a spiritual awakening
against all forms of war, "applies to be a noncombatant conscientious
objector, leaves the Army after his request is granted, and travels to
Israel with a group of Christian peace activists." Mark Johnson (Fellowship of Reconciliation) shares:

Logan
Mehl-Laituri spoke to us on March 16, 2007 from the front of the
National Cathedral where some 3000 of us had gathered to hear testimony
before walking through the snow to the White House to protest the Iraq
War, in its 5th year. He describes the evening toward the end of his
testimonial tracing his crystallization of conscience and journey as a
Conscientious Objector, released today, July 4th 2012, because of a
confirming epiphany he had in the Cathedral that evening, before the
fresco of Jesus's Resurrection. Wandering the Church prior to the
ceremony, at which he was asked to read the words of another recognized
conscientious objector, Joshua Casteel, he had stumbled upon and fresco
and recognized with full and final force the call to forgive one's
enemies and serve God. As with much of the book, the scene is painted
vividly with characters in the fresco coming to life and being
transformed into Iraqi soldiers and families. We can feel Logan's body
quake and see the tears streaming down his face.

The just released book is available at InterVarsity Press ($12 in soft cover currently).
Retired Army colonel and retired State Department diplomat Ann Wright
says of the book, "Following your conscience while in the military can
put you at odds with its own 'institutional conscience' and with
specific missions and wars overseen by civilian politicians. Logan
Mehl-Laituri's journey from combat soldier to conscientious objector to
seminary student is a powerful story of recognizing one's conscience and
then following it to the remarkable places of witness in our world." Camile Jackson (Duke University's Duke Today) noted Tuesday:

This morning he shared his views in an interview with the Armed Services Radio Network, which broadcasts to military service members and civilians overseas.

He was a member of the Iraq Veterans Against the War and helped organize, After the Yellow Ribbon
project with Milites Christi, an emerging Divinity School student group
that helps churches and military groups "heal the unseen wounds of
war."

Jaber Ali (Middle East Confidential) explains,
"There are fears that the trend will continue, especially on Friday.
Analysts believe that the Shiite pilgrims will be the principal targets
of bombings and security is being beefed up around Karbala." Press TV reports
that 40,000 security forces will provide security within Karbala and
that security forces are also deployed "around the central city."

AFP reports
Shi'ite pilgrims "gathered in the central shrine of Karbala to
commemorate Imam Mehdi's birth, with children lighting 1,179 candles,
representing the number of years since the birth of Shiite Islam's
so-called 12th imam." Sammer N. Yacoub (AP) notes the skies of the city of Karbala were filled with 14 police helicopters and all non-security vehicles were banned. Hassoun al-Haffar (AKnews) estimated
4 million pilgrims had visited this week by Thursday alone and explain,
"Twelver Shi'a believe that al-Madhi was born in 869 and did not die
but rather was hidden by God in 941 and will later emerge with Jesus
Christ in order to fulfill their mission of bringing peace and justice
to the world."

There has been violence targeting the pilgrims throughout the week with the worst taking place Tuesday:

AFP observes,
"The blast came just hours after near-simultaneous car bombs targeting
Shiite pilgrims on the outskirts of the central shrine city of Karbala
killed four people." Alsumaria notes
of the Karbala bombing that it hit at the popular market where fruits
and vegetables are sold, it left 11 dead and forty-five injured
(according to police sources) and that millions of Shi'ites are
expected to travel through Karbala this week to celebrate the birth of
the 12th or Hidden Imam (9th century). Jamal Hashim and Mustafa Sabah (Xinhua) report, "Karbala's
twin bombings came as hundreds of thousands of Shiite pilgrims have
started to march to the holy city to commemorate the birth of Imam
Mahdi, the last of the twelve most revered Shiite's Imams. Authorities
in Karbala expect that the number of pilgrims from Iraqi Shiite cities
and outside the country, who started to arrive to observe the ritual
ahead of its climax date on Thursday and Friday morning in Karbala will
exceed five millions."

The political crisis continues in Iraq. As a result, Moqtada al-Sadr gave a major address today at 8:00 pm Baghdad time and it was carried by satellite TV.
al-Sadr is a Shi'ite cleric whose followers include 40 MPs in
Parliament. He has has had a long and difficult relationship with
both the Bush White House and the Barack White House.

All Iraqi News reports
he declared that three presidencies should be limited to two terms.and
that this is needed to ensure that Iraq does not experience another
dictatorship. The three presidencies are the President, the Prime
Minister and the Speaker of Parliament. Such a limit would mean Jalal
Talabani, current Iraqi President, would be done as would Nouri
al-Maliki. Only Speaker Osama al-Nujaifi would be elegible for another
term. When the Arab Spring swept through the MidEast in early 2011,
Nouri al-Maliki swore that he wouldn't seek a third term. A day later,
his spokesperson modified that statement to insist he wouldn't seek a
third term if he had not achieved in his second term. Then, almost a
year later, his attorney declared there is nothing preventing Nouri from
seeking a third term. Moqtada stressed that the Iraqi people need
security and that means there needs to be a Minister of Defense,
Minister of National Security and Minister of Interior (the article
actually says Intelligence but it is Interior and this second article makes that point clear).
Nouri was supposed to nominate people to be heads of the security
ministries and have them confirmed by the end of December 2010.
Instead, Nouri has failed to do so and with violence continuing to rise,
that's a serious failure. Moqtada also discussed how Iraqis need
electricity they can count on and water they can drink and jobs, they
need jobs. Those are three demands Iraqis made when they protested
in the streets in February 2011. For those who have forgotten, this is
not just when Nouri announced he wouldn't seek a third term but also
when he announced that, if Iraqis would give him 100 days, then he would
address these issues. Moqtada asked his followers to give Nouri the
100 days. After 100 days, Nouri failed to deliver and pretended as
though he'd never made the promises.

In
addition, Moqtada spoke about Iraq needing to get along with neighboring
countries. Nouri has alienated Turkey -- in fact, Nouri's constant
verbal attacks and constant lies about Turkey have resulted in the
Turkish government becoming much closer to the Kurdish Regional
Government and more and more distant from the Baghdad-based government.
He's alienated the Arab neighbors and this was on display during the
Arab League Summit. Dropping back to the March 30th snapshot:

There are 22 countries in the Arab League. Hamza Hendawi and Lara Jakes (AP) put
the number of Arab League leaders who attended at 10 and they pointed
out that Qatar, Saudi Arabi, Morocco and Jordan were among those who
sent lower-level officials to the summit. Patrick Martin (Globe & Mail) explains
that Sheik Hamad Bin Jassem Bin Jabr Al Thani (Prime Minister of Qatar)
declared on television that Qatar's "low level of representation" was
meant to send "a 'message' to Iraq' majority Shiites to stop what he
called the marginalization of its minority Sunnis." Yussef Hamza (The National) offers,
"Iraq has looked to the summit, the first it has hosted in a
generation, to signal its emergence from years of turmoil, American
occupation and isolation. It wanted the summit to herald its return to
the Arab fold. But the large number of absentees told a different
story." That's reality.

And let's deal with reality such as when people talk about things that they don't know s**t about. Social Media Queen Jane Arraf Tweeted with her male followers about the speech:

That
second one? If you click "expand" you'll find a man (of course,
Twitter's nothing but online dating apparently who ridicules Moqtada's
idea about a corruption.

He has to ridicule it
because, see, he wrote an 'analysis' that was published today and it
turned to s**t the minute Moqtada started speaking. Again, these
so-called 'experts' really aren't experts. They don't what they're
talking about, I have no idea how our world got so screwed up that these
people get to speak.

But did Moqtada say what Jane says he did?

No.

Jane, you should embarrassed and ashamed of yourself.

The fact that you have X number of characters in Twitter is no excuse.

What
Moqtada stated about corruption was that it needed to be addressed with
a full government assault -- including executive orders, including
judicial committees, including Parliament and new bodies that are not
about partisanship, ethnicity or ideology.

I'm
sorry that someone offered masturbation in text form and it was
published today and that their hypothesis about Moqtada -- not "theory,"
theories can be tested with certain expected results -- turned out to
be trash. And if you'd own that, I wouldn't even be mentioning it. I
saw that piece of garbage this morning and chose to ignore it. But if
you're going to make little jokes implying that Moqtada doesn't know
what he's talking about, you're begging for someone to say you're full
of s**t.

And Jane Arraf did an awful job in
'reporting.' This was a major speech. We'll be returning to it on
Monday. Two Tweets? That's embarrassing. That the second one leaves
the wrong impression, distorts what he said, that's bad journalism.